LONDON, June 29, 2026, 11:02 BST
- Associated British Foods was quoted 0.18% lower at 1,974.0p/1,975.5p, roughly in line with a 0.20% fall in the FTSE 100.
- The stock sits above the average 12-month analyst target on Investing.com, which gives a 1,873.9p target and 4.88% downside from its feed.
- ABF’s July 1 trading update will test whether Primark’s weak European sales and a loss-making sugar arm are still dragging on the 2027 demerger case.
Associated British Foods plc (LON:ABF) was quoted a touch lower on Monday as the market priced the Primark owner less as a break-up story and more as an earnings-risk stock before its third-quarter update on July 1. The London Stock Exchange was inside its regular 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. BST session at the dateline time.
Hargreaves Lansdown’s delayed screen showed ABF’s sell price at 1,974.0p and buy price at 1,975.5p, down 3.5p, while the FTSE 100 (INDEXFTSE:UKX) was down 0.20%. Its screen put ABF’s market value at about 13.82 billion pounds.
| ABF market read | Latest quoted data |
|---|---|
| Sell / buy | 1,974.0p / 1,975.5p |
| Move | -3.5p / -0.18% |
| Open / previous close | 1,971.5p / 1,978.5p |
| Volume | 421,971 shares |
| Market value | £13.82 bln |
| Dividend yield | 3.19% |
The sharper read is in the targets. Investing.com’s ABF page showed a last price of 1,970.0p, an average 12-month target of 1,873.9p, a high target of 2,150p and a low of 1,410p. It listed one buy call and six sell calls, with the source’s own calculation pointing to 4.88% downside.
That discount matters because ABF has already given investors the break-up they asked for. The company said on April 21 that it would demerge Primark from the food business, with shareholders due to own shares in both listed companies after completion. ABF says it aims to complete the demerger before the end of calendar 2027.
The demerger has not yet erased the earnings issue. In the 24 weeks to Feb. 28, group revenue was almost flat in actual currency but down 2% at constant currency, while adjusted operating profit fell 18% at constant currency to 691 million pounds. Primark’s UK like-for-like sales rose 1.3%, but Europe fell 5.6%. Sugar made a 27 million pound adjusted operating loss.
| H1 2026 pressure point | Result | Year-on-year move |
|---|---|---|
| Group revenue | £9.47 bln | -2% constant currency |
| Adjusted operating profit | £691 mln | -18% constant currency |
| Adjusted EPS | 70.7p | -15% |
| Primark UK like-for-like sales | +1.3% | n/a |
| Primark Europe like-for-like sales | -5.6% | n/a |
| Sugar adjusted operating profit | -£27 mln | n/a |
Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said in a June 26 preview he was “not optimistic that momentum will have improved” when ABF updates the market. He said Primark sales were likely to stay weak in continental Europe, and said markets were already forecasting a sharper 13% fall in full-year underlying operating profit to 1.5 billion pounds. HL
The split still has strategic support. George Weston told Reuters in April that Wittington Investments and other shareholders thought ABF was “doing the right thing”. RBC Capital Markets’ Richard Chamberlain had earlier said a Primark-food separation “makes sense” because of the lack of synergy between the two businesses. Reuters
Chris Beckett, consumer staples analyst at Quilter Cheviot, took the harder side of the argument. He said the split was “more about structure than strategy” and that Primark remained a large, low-margin European retailer facing pressure, especially in Germany. Quilter
Primark has also been building a standalone team. It named Lucy Slinger, a former Ingka Group deputy CFO and longtime Shell plc (LON:SHEL) executive, as finance chief on June 11, after Eoin Tonge was appointed Primark CEO earlier in the year.
ABF’s own calendar lists the trading update for Wednesday, July 1, with an analyst and investor call at 08:30 BST. The numbers investors will scan first are Primark Europe like-for-like sales, markdowns, sugar guidance and whether the full-year profit outlook still clears the market’s 1.5 billion pound bar.
